


Sorrow in G Minor, Mov. 2

by Daecyan_Shikoba



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e08 Visionary, Gen, Pre-Slash, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daecyan_Shikoba/pseuds/Daecyan_Shikoba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wondered how long it’d take him, if he’d find it...if he was remembering incorrectly. It was a long time ago, and his mother had died not long after. That is, if Stiles had this tentative timeline right. Stiles could be incredibly wrong, could be remembering a different person entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorrow in G Minor, Mov. 2

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a thing, because whoa was that episode painful.  
> This is how I cope with painful things.  
> (Assuming it wasn't so painful I've been rendered incapacitated by it.)
> 
> This is more pre-Sterek than actual Sterek, but I tagged it as Sterek because ninety-nine percent of everything I write for Teen Wolf is done with Sterek in mind, implied, pre, background. 
> 
> Also, mama Stilinski feels, because I couldn't help myself. 
> 
> This didn't turn out the way I'd planned when I started typing it.

Stiles grimaced and pulled another box from the attic, suppressing the sneeze from all the damn dust, and hauled it into his bedroom. His mother’s neat handwriting was across the top, the words written in black sharpie saying it was the box with her recordings and lessons and the sheet music she used for the lessons. Stiles swallowed back the lump in his throat, glancing in the direction of his mother’s music room, where his father had locked away her piano and her violin and her cello and the record player with all the records of classical music she’d play when she was in there thinking about how to best help her students. He wasn’t going through her stuff for a walk down memory lane.

 

He wondered how long it’d take him, if he’d find it...if he was remembering incorrectly. It was a long time ago, and his mother had died not long after. That is, if Stiles had this tentative timeline right. Stiles could be incredibly wrong, could be remembering a different person entirely.

 

He opened the box.

 

If his father still didn’t get that look in his eye when his mom was brought up, Stiles would ask him. But that room was still locked, and the key was tucked somewhere only his father knew, and Stiles wasn’t all that ready to bring her up either. It was killing him to go through her things. He could still smell her perfume, clinging to the paper, faintly.

 

Lilacs.

 

_Rory Anders - Violin_

 

_Sydney Collins - Cello_

 

_Charice Franks - Piano_

 

Stiles heaved a sigh and sat back on his heels, pressing the balls of his hands against his eyes. After another moment, he grabbed an unmarked cassette tape and carried it over to the old player he’d hauled down first, when the idea came to him late the night before. He stuck the tape into the cassette player and pressed play.

 

_“This is, well, obviously this is me. I’m recording myself, oh god, that sounds so conceited! It sounds conceited, doesn’t it John?” Laughter. “Ugh, okay, I’m recording myself playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Winter, violin... Uh, shit, what should I be saying? I’m the only one that’ll be listening to this...” More laughter, a muffled voice. “Yeah, okay, shut up John.”_

 

_The violin started up, after a deep inhale._

 

Stiles sat on the floor and sagged against the end of his bed, staring blearily at the cassette player while he listened to his mother play the violin, the recording over ten years old. His heart lurched every time she laughed at herself for flubbing a part, missing notes, his father chuckling in the background when she cursed.

 

His phone went off on his desk, and Stiles startled before scrabbling over to it. Scott’s number flashed on the display screen, and Stiles’ heart dropped in disappointment. He answered it as he knee-walked his way back to the cassette player, stopping the tape in the middle of his mother’s ringing laughter and his father chastising a four-year-old Stiles.

 

“Hey, what’s up?”

 

“So I talked to Deaton some more,” Scott said. “I mean, after your dad saved him and stuff, Deaton said something that just...”

 

Stiles frowned and dropped back on his ass, trapping his phone between his shoulder and ear while his hands reached out to fix his notes on the sacrifices. “What?”

 

“So Deaton thinks Deucalion isn’t here for Derek.”

 

“What?” Stiles squawked and nearly dropped his phone when he flailed. “What the hell? Then why has he been systematically attacking Derek!?”

 

Scott sighed on the other side of the line. “Deflection? Throw us all off his trail? It’s not like he wants everyone to know who he’s really after.”

 

“But Deaton knows?” Stiles demanded.

 

“Yeah, well, not conclusively. He _thinks_ Deucalion is after me.”

 

Stiles stilled. “You? Deucalion is after you? What did you do? You haven’t even been a werewolf that long? What could you have possibly done to _him_?”

 

“It’s not anything I’ve done to him,” Scott sighed heavily. “It’s more, what I could do. What I can become.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“My eyes have been bouncing between yellow and red, dude. Deaton says I have the potential to become what he calls this ‘true alpha’, I’d gain alpha powers without killing for it.” Scott mumbled, his voice slightly strained. “He thinks that’s why Deucalion is here, why he’s after _me_ , not Derek.”

 

“Oh my God,” Stiles sighed and slumped backwards until his upper body was bent over the edge of his bed awkwardly. “Jesus.”

 

“Yeah,” Scott sighed. “Allison took me to, um, Gerard and he told us about the alpha pack before they killed their packs - “

 

“ _Gerard!?_ ” Stiles croaked and scrubbed his face with his other hand. “Jesus _Christ_.”

 

“Trust me, Stiles, I didn’t like it either. And I don’t believe much of anything he told us, but some of it is useful on a ‘just in case’ basis, you know?” Scott said, and there was static over the line like he was moving the phone around. “I’m going back to the clinic to talk some more with Deaton, do you wanna come?”

 

Stiles took a deep breath, held it for a moment, thinking, and exhaled heavily. “No, um, I have something I need to do right now. Tell me about it later, though, yeah?”

 

“Of course.”

 

They hung up and Stiles let out a loud breath. He didn’t exactly know what to think, about anything. Peter’s tale gave him this odd feeling, a suspicion that made Stiles even more distrustful than normal. Peter Hale was a sociopathic prick, and Stiles doubted that what he’d told them was the entire truth.

 

But he didn’t doubt that the girl, Paige, had died. He didn’t doubt that at all.

 

Stiles shook himself and reached over to the box, dragging it closer to where he was leaning against the side of his bed, and started going through the contents again. The house was silent around him, his dad at the station going over evidence. Everything seemed unreal, suspended in time.

 

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he found what he’d been searching for. He rubbed his thumb over the name his mother had written on the label, over the details.

 

_Cello; Suite No. 1 in G Major; Paige Reynolds_

 

“There could be more than one Paige, right? That’s a pretty common name.” Stiles winced and looked over towards the window, like he expected Derek to just pop up outside it or something. Of course Derek wouldn’t; Derek hadn’t been anywhere near his house since school started back up.

 

Stiles groaned and rubbed his hands over his face and pulled at his hair. “Crap, this idea was so dumb. I don’t know if this is...and that jackass never said her last name.” He grimaced and pulled his father’s number up in his cell. It was maybe one of the last things he ever wanted to do, but.

 

But he couldn’t not do this.

 

“What’s up, Stiles? I’m a little busy at the moment.”

 

“Hey dad, I...uh, I have a question about,” Stiles swallowed and chewed his lip for a minutes.

 

“Question about what, son? Is everything okay?”

 

“About mom, about the music lessons she used to give before she got sick.”

 

There was a long pause.

 

“What about them?”

 

“Do...you remember her students?”

 

“Vaguely, I wasn’t always home when she gave lessons. Why?”

 

Stiles swallowed thickly and looked down at the cassette tape in his hand. “Do you remember a Paige Reynolds?”

 

Another long pause.

 

“Yes... Why are you asking about her?”

 

“Um,” Stiles let out a little breath. “Just... Do you know where I might be able to find her? I was thinking, y’know, mom was really close to all her students, and I think they’d like to have the recordings mom made of some of their lessons?”

 

“Ah,” his father blew out a heavy sigh. “That,” he sounded choked up, and Stiles winced against it. “That’s very kind, son, but. Paige Reynolds died not long before your mother got sick.”

 

“Oh,” Stiles closed his eyes and balanced the cassette on his thigh. “Um, sorry? I, thank you.”

 

“Hey, it’s...alright.” His dad was silent for another long moment. “I’m glad you’re asking about your mom, actually. It, well, it still hurts thinking about her, but I like being able to remember the good stuff.”

 

Stiles choked back the little hurt noise and ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, m-me too.”

 

“I love you, kid.”

 

“Love you too, Dad.”

 

“...Alright, well, I gotta get back to work. I’ll be home late, so don’t wait up, alright?”

 

“Okay, bye Dad,” Stiles clenched his eyes shut and breathed heavily. His father bid him goodbye and they hung up.

 

He sat there for another long moment, silent and still in the semi-darkness of his room. Stiles wasn’t exactly sure what time it was, or if Derek even had his cell anymore. He wasn’t sure Derek wouldn’t just kill him for this. He wasn’t sure about much of anything.

 

Deucalion was apparently after Scott, not Derek.

 

Peter was a manipulative liar who lies.

 

Stiles trusted Derek, and Derek maybe trusted him back. Maybe.

 

**_To Derek [11:49 p.m.]:_ **

_I need you to come to my house_

**_To Derek [11:49 p.m.]:_ **

_we need to talk and its important_

**_To Derek [11:50 p.m.]:_ **

_and I think I have something you might want_

 

He moved over to his desk and carefully set the cassette on top of a random book that’d been there for weeks. He placed his phone next to them, and opened his laptop after a moment of hesitation. Either Derek would or he wouldn’t.

 

///

 

“Whatever this is better be important, Stiles.”

 

“Holy God!” Stiles whirled around to glare at Derek. “Could you not? I refuse to die of a heart attack at the age of sixteen, especially when I’ve lived through _werewolves_ and _kanimas_.”

 

Derek fixed Stiles with an unimpressed look. “You texted me earlier. What do you want?”

 

Stiles huffed and swiveled his chair back around, raising his eyebrows at the time on his laptop. “Dude, I texted you three and a half hours ago.”

 

“I can leave.”

 

“Jesus,” Stiles sighed and glanced at the cassette tape sitting on his desk. “I went looking for you yesterday, well, technically two days ago, but you weren’t at your loft.”

“So?”

 

“When I asked where you were, Cora just told me this story about you and Peter hiding in some safe house.” Stiles ran his fingers through his hair. “I... Then Peter showed up and started telling us about how you were when you were in high school.”

 

Derek, when Stiles turned to look at him, was white as a sheet, his eyes wide and vulnerable in a way Stiles wasn’t expecting. Derek shut them a moment later, shook his head once, and opened them to glare angrily at Stiles.

 

“Enjoy story hour with Peter?” He bit out, just shy of a snarl.

 

Stiles looked over at the box he’d pulled out of the attic. “No, I didn’t. I don’t trust much of anything he said. He’s a manipulative prick.”

 

“What do you want, Stiles?” Derek growled.

 

“A lot of things, really. I wanna go back in time, stop Scott and I from going out in the woods that night. Go back in time to tell me my mother to go to the doctors weeks sooner than she actually did.” Stiles shrugged, exhausted, and turned back around to stare at the cassette. “For Heather to be alive, and Erica, and Boyd. For none of this shitstorm to have come. To name a few.”

 

“I’m leaving.”

 

Stiles sighed and tapped his fingers against the cassette. “Right now, I just want to know the truth. And to give you this, and for you not to rip my throat out when I do it.”

 

He turned around to see Derek staring at him, confused. Stiles licked his lips and held out the cassette tape for Derek to see, moving his fingers away from the label so he could see the name printed on it. Derek’s eyes went wide, his skin going even paler than it had a few minutes prior, and Stiles’ heart broke.

 

“What...”

 

Stiles swallowed and fidgeted a little. “Peter...told us about the two you, and while I don’t trust much of what he said, I can believe that she meant a lot to you. And, I just. He mentioned she played the cello, and I thought her name sounded incredibly familiar. My mom used to give music lessons, and I asked my dad, and...well. I just, I thought you might like to have this?”

 

Derek reached out with a trembling hand and took the tape, bringing it to be cradled against his chest. “I...thanks. But, I don’t have anything I could play this in.”

 

“Um,” Stiles stood up and went over to his dresser, where the cassette player was sitting. “I can’t exactly give you this, but, if you’d like to listen to it here? I can go downstairs or something.”

 

“I, yeah, yes, please,” Derek nodded, his voice small and hoarse.

 

“Okay,” Stiles murmured and popped the cassette of his mother out, holding out his hand for the other tape. Derek handed it to him, his fingers cold and trembling where they brushed, and Stiles put the cassette into the player, closing it gently and handing it over to Derek.

 

Derek held the cassette player in trembling hands for a moment. “Thanks,” he whispered.

 

Stiles gripped Derek’s shoulder for a moment before walking to the door. “Take as much time as you need, big guy.”

 

He resolved to find a cassette player for Derek as he shut the door behind him, the scratchy-recorded sound of his mother’s tinkling laugh mixed with a young girl’s laugh coming through the door.

 

_“This is a recording of Paige Reynolds’ cello lesson.”_

 

_“I’ll be playing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major.”_

 

_“Start whenever you’re ready, Paige.”_

 

///fin\\\\\

 


End file.
